Subscribe to our Newsletter:

From ashes to trashes: Urns found at Recycling Center

JULIE LANE PHOTO |Two burial urns turned up at the town Recycling Center’s ‘goody pile’ on Mother’s Day. Employees are hoping it was discarded in error and will be claimed by the rightful owner.

On Mother’s Day, employees at Shelter Island’s Recycling Center found a cardboard box containing two urns with ashes.

The urns were left at “the goody pile” where residents drop off items still in good condition to be claimed by others who will give them a new life.

The employees brought the box to Public Works Commissioner Jay Card Jr. who is hoping someone might recognize them and realize they were discarded in error.

Perhaps someone was cleaning out a house and didn’t realize what was in the box or it was left by a previous owner who didn’t know what to do with them, he suggested. He’d like to think that no one purposely dumped the blue and white flowered urns.

Brian Sherman, who works at the Center, said he recalls another urn being found, perhaps seven or eight years ago, and that ended up simply being added to recycled metal materials.

Someone is very sick if they intentionally dumped the urns on Mother’s Day, employee Michael Gulluscio said.

“I really don’t know what to do with them ultimately,” if no one claims the urns, Mr. Card said. But then he recalled a cemetery on Burns Road where remains of people are buried if no one claims them. That could become the final resting place for the contents of these urns, he said.